Trading your time for money isn’t sustainable, especially as a solopreneur, coach, or freelancer. At the end of the day, every business needs an offer and sales funnel that can scale.

If you’re relying on paid ads, this funnel is designed to get a positive ROI as soon as possible without wasting thousands of dollars on free downloads or showering your audience with 20% discounts.

This funnel can be broken down into 7 parts:

1. Initial offer (eBook)

2. 2x Landing pages

3. Order bump

4. Upsell

5. Downsell

6. Distribution

7. Email

Part 1: The eBook

You need to establish yourself as the authority in your space and demonstrate exactly how you can take someone from A → B.

To do this, kickstart your funnel with a high-value, low-cost offer priced anywhere between $5 – $20. This can also take the form of a pre-recorded training or a guide.

Offering a low-priced item instead of a 100% free eBook helps you build an audience of people who are willing to spend money to solve their problems.

Even if they’re only spending a couple of bucks — it’s a massive signal that seriously impacts the quality of your leads.

Please note that this shouldn’t be a short, quick-to-create eBook. There must be an obvious reason why you haven’t made this content free.

Part 2: The Landing Pages

You’ll need to give your eBook (and later, your upsell) somewhere to call home.

Along with these two landing pages, you may also need to prepare banners and popups for your website or social media profile.

If you’re not sure how to structure these pages, you can get started with online examples, go through the funnels of your competitors, or hire a professional copywriter.

Part 3: The Distribution

Now that your offer’s ready and your landing pages are up and running, how are you going to attract conversion-ready traffic?

If you’re running a blog, use banners and popups on the articles with the most relevant content.

If you’re running paid ads, test various designs, messages and value propositions to find something scalable. The best part of this system is that you can quickly generate enough revenue to cover your marketing costs and scale from there.

Alternatively, you could also leverage newsletters that offer advertising space or lean into your social media presence.

SparkToro is a useful tool that helps you identify where your audience hangs out on social media.

Part 4: The Order Bump

Alright — your offer’s ready, your pages are up and you’re getting high-quality traffic.

Now, it’s time to start increasing your average order value, but what should you offer and how should you price it?

I’ve seen two types of offers work well: a resource that accelerates results OR something that strongly complements your eBook but isn’t necessary to get the original offer’s value. You don’t want your prospects to feel like you’ve been dangling carrots in front of them.

Price-wise, I recommend sticking to between $15 – $35.

For example, a good order bump for A Guide to Writing Landing Pages would be a ready-to-go landing page template for X industry.

Here’s an example:

Part 5: The Upsell

Now that you’ve successfully sold your eBook and hopefully added an order bump too, it’s time to get to your serious upsell.

After your customer’s purchase is complete, direct them to your next landing page and ideally include a sales video.

If your initial offer is an eBook that explains WHAT to do, then your upsell should demonstrate HOW to do it as fast and effectively as possible.

For example: if I sold an eBook on writing landing pages and order bumped with a landing page template, I could make the upsell copywriting coaching or done-for-you marketing.

Part 6: The Downsell

This part’s optional, but works frequently enough that it’s worth testing.

If your new customer isn’t interested in your upsell, you can transition to a downsell in the form of a payment plan or alternative package.

Downsells can actually generate more revenue because a $250 upsell could become 3 payments of $99.

Part 7: Email Magic

It takes some time to nurture your customers who weren’t ready for your upsell. The best (and cheapest) way to do this is through email marketing.

Set up an automated sequence of 5 — 10 emails that educates and persuades your eBook customers to move further down your sales funnel.

Remember to focus on providing value in your emails, as selling too strongly will chase your hard-earned customers away before they can purchase your flagship course or coaching.

To summarize, this is how you build a marketing machine that hums along all day and night:

• Create a high-value, low-cost eBook

• Set up two landing pages (eBook + upsell)

• Distribute your offer via paid ads, social media, blog banners and pop-ups

• Add an order bump that complements your offer

• Upsell to coaching or your flagship offer

• Downsell to a payment plan.